Who is Anty John in the Yorkshire Shepherdess new series?

But in this series, which starts on Monday, there’s a new theme, as she gets closer to the past generations than ever before by delving into the history of the dale to help her renovate a 300-year-old stone barn.

The Owen family in full with Anty John's behind: Raven, Clemmy, Reuben, Edith, Sidney, Amanda, Annas, Violet, Miles, Nancy, CliveAmanda, Clive and their nine children live at Ravenseat, above Keld, but regular viewers will have heard them mention a ruined barn known as “Anty John’s” and seen its broken outline in the landscape as it has been abandoned for more than 50 years.

“There’s a cluster of three or four barns known as Smithy Holme,” says series producer James Knight. “They often had a dual purpose, with one side for the animals, although we think this one, called High Smithy Holme, was built as a dwelling in the early 1700s because it has got stone mullion windows.”

It was inhabited for nearly a century, but was in need of repair in 1818 when it was inherited by Anthony John Clarkson – the eponymous “Anty John”.

He was born in 1787 at West Stonesdale, a couple of miles from the barn, but trained as a teacher and began work at Barningham, on the edge of Teesdale.

However, the death of his father and the fact that he had, in his own words, “got myself a sweetheart”, drew him back to upper Swaledale, where he married Mally – a nickname for Mary – in 1818. Then he started restoring the barn, just as Amanda is almost exactly 200 years later.

Anty John's, or High Smithy Holme, was derelict with the roof falling in when the Owens bought it in 2020The Owens rent their Ravenseat sheep farm from American-British billionaire Robert Miller, who made his fortune inventing duty free shops in the 1960s and now owns the Gunnerside estate. They bought the isolated, elevated Anty Johns in 2020 as a way of owning a foothold in the dale, and got planning permission to convert it into a four bedroom home.

The first five-episode series charts their first year of restoration – and of research.

Amanda Owen with the remains of a large fireplace in Anty John'sTo find out more about Anty John, Amanda and her local history expert, Derek Wallace, visited museums, libraries and archives in Keld, Richmond and Northallerton. They became aware that Clarkson’s diary, or diaries, had been in existence as recently as the 1960s as they found a few pages photocopied by a researcher who had been trying to transcribe it.

“They were small, A5 size, with florid handwriting that needed a magnifying glass to read, and it became our holy grail to track down the originals,” says James.

They were driven on by Amanda because, although the diaries appeared to be written very matter-of-factly, she became fascinated by the local stories that the photocopies hinted at.

“There’s a wealth of knowledge about the facts and figures, rents and acreages etc, but for me it’s the human element that really resonated,” she says. “It’s the description of the parties, who was philandering, the arguments and gossip, reading about the fairs he visited and children being naughty. The core message, I suppose, is that socially not much has changed.”

Indeed, the parallels between now and then are great, with the Owens battling against one of the wettest years on record to keep their sheep farm going while finding the time – and the workmen – to get a roof on Anty Johns before the old beams collapse and bring the whole structure down.

“Clarkson writes about the problems of doing the roof in the 1820s, so he was doing what Amanda is now, and he made it into his family home, with his three children,” says James. “When Mally died young, he lived there with his second wife until he died in1847.”

Derek Wallace and Amanda Owen pore over the detail of Anthony Clarkson's 1841 massive map of SwaledaleThe reason Clarkson’s name became affixed to the barn was not because of his diaries but because he sketched himself a place in dale history by drawing up its first detailed maps, marking on both Ravenseat and High Smithy Holme.

For centuries, people farming church-owned land had to give the church one-tenth of their produce, which was known as a “tithe”. Following the 16th Century Reformation, much church land was distributed to new owners and by the start of the 18th Century, there was great dispute about who should be paying what to whom.

So in 1836, the Tithe Commutation Act was passed allowing tithes to be paid in cash rather than in out-dated goods and produce.

It also set up the Tithe Commission to oversee the drawing of accurate “tithe maps” showing the ownership of each, numbered, parcel of land, from which people’s dues could be worked out.

Anthony Clarkson's name at the bottom of the 1841 Muker mapClarkson, clearly a very clever fellow, got the job of surveying upper Swaledale. For several years, he was traipsing the dale with his theodolite, settling boundary disputes between neighbours, and then, by candlelight at Smithy Holme, drawing up the huge and detailed maps. He completed them in 1841.

From Smithy Holme to the left to Keld on the right, Anthony Clarkson's 1841 map of upper Swaledale is the first accurate map of the daleThrough words and maps, Amanda is able to draw up a picture of the lives of previous generations in her neck of the words – well, actually, in her rainswept expanse of the exposed moors.

Anthony Clarkson's 1841 map of upper Swaledale marking Ravenseat, which is now the setting of the Yorkshire Shepherdess

“How they actually lived is beyond belief really,” says Amanda, who has had the barn wired up to electricity for the first time in its history, even though there is not even a track to its door. “The hardships they endured but also the freedoms they enjoyed. It’s a mixed bag because there was less form filling and permissions required, but then also they were living life on a knife edge – if you didn’t work or were incapacitated in any way, then there was little to fall back on.

“On a good day, you might see their lives through rose tinted glasses, how pleasant it must have been to be unconstrained by the world and untouched by bigger issues.

“In a bad time, though, when the rain is lashing down and the land sodden, you thank your lucky stars that you have your waterproofs and the means to have a hot shower at the end of a hard day of toil.”

Amanda Owen's picture of the new roof going on Anty John'sProducer James says: “This could have been another family farming series or it could have been another renovation project, but this connection with Anty Johns opens up the past of this incredible corner of Yorkshire and brings it back to life.

“For instance, Clarkson tells of one evening at Smithy Holme, they have guests, they drink, he plays the dulcimer, and then they weigh each other. It must have been a parlour game.

Amanda and Clive Owen at Anty John's

“You can imagine them, slightly drunk, using the machines for weighing the animals, and then he notes down the weight of everyone present!”

For all we still endure the same elements, the same lashing of the wind and rain, the same turning of the seasons, some aspects of the lives of past generations are very different.